A Christian Counselor on Co-narrating: Helping Teen Sons (and Fathers) to Tell Their Stories, Part 2

Part 2 of this 4-Part Series

This series offers personal reflections and therapeutic perspectives related to Dr. William Pollack’s book “Real Boys,” on engaging the hearts of young men who are confronted with the shame-hardening effects of “the Boy Code.” This is Part 2 of a 4-Part series.

In my work as a Christian counselor, I sit with men and teen boys, fathers, and sons, who are often wrestling with a restless and ageless question. They may word it differently, or find the words elusive, but it strikes the same core nerve.

Do I Have What It Takes?

For a coming-of-age adolescent, this question invariably becomes part of his “individuating” process – the testing, doubting, and natural growing pains of self-discovery and self-definition. The question can serve a valuable rite-of-passage purpose (to be discussed in Part 3 of this series), if the boy feels supported by loved ones and role models with a more relational, inclusive view of masculinity.

Masculine Mask

However, I believe this question can be hijacked by the shame tactics of the “Boy Code,” as termed by psychologist William Pollack in his book, Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood. As I noted in my previous article, boys from a very young age are conditioned to conform to a suffocating cultural stereotype of masculinity, and to prematurely separate from family bonds.

The resulting shame and trauma of this ‘toughening-up’ process may eventually drive a boy behind an anesthetizing mask of indifference, defiance, depression, aggression, or performance in order to save face – until the boy seemingly becomes the mask. Until the boy loses touch with his core emotional self, and how to genuinely and intimately express this self in relationships.

Coded Question

From my perspective, the do-I-have-what-it-takes question is written into the “Code” – as a measuring-stick function that effectively internalizes a boy’s shame by sifting and separating him from others. Wheat or chaff, weak or strong, in or out. The competitive pressure can reduce a boy to either machismo (over-compensating, proving behavior) or masochism (self-sabotaging, self-preserving behavior that leverages its own power). The alpha-boy who needs to outdo his rivals on the playing field is seeking the same reassurance and connection as the boy who quits the team for fear of failure (or success).

Pollack cites research identifying four main masculine “injunctions,” or stereotyped male ideals, that epitomize the “Boy Code”:

• The Sturdy Oak. The “stoic, stable” provider-man who does not grieve or emote.
• Give ‘em Hell. The John Wayne superhero hard-wired for danger and daring feats.
• The Big Wheel. The aloof academic or career man (what I see as writer Tom Wolfe’s “Master of the Universe” persona) who powers through people and projects.
• No Sissy Stuff. The gender strait-jacket that stigmatizes so-called “feminine” traits.

Half-men

A tragic consequence of the “Boy Code,” Pollack notes, is that it teaches boys to live primarily out of their “heroic” half – the rough-and-tumble, angry, action-oriented side of physical prowess and intellectual might. As vitally healthy as these expressions can be, they often come at the expense of boys learning to suppress, and to see as “weak,” their gentle, intuitive, vulnerable, verbal sides. Pollack says boys are punished not only for violating the Code’s machismo, but by a confusing double-standard: society also expects them to become emotionally savvy, sensitive, and egalitarian gentlemen.

The problem is that a boy’s quest to the resolve the “do I have what it takes” question is validated and defined less by his ability to relationally process and articulate his emotions, and far more by “Boy Code” measures of achievement and pseudo-self-sufficiency. According to this clichéd masculine script, failure is not an option. In reality, a healthy measure of failure is imperative for fermenting psychological growth and empowerment.

Gender Gap

Research shows that mothers respond to the distress, emotions, and achievement of boys differently than girls, not out of insensitivity or neglect, but because they’re innocently abiding by the “Boy Code.” When boys are shamed for needing Mom, especially if Dad isn’t emotionally available, their celebrated “masculine autonomy” can begin to mask a sense of abandonment. Young boys struggle to integrate their masculine identity because their gender difference is distinguished more by distancing from mother than positive identification with father. As Pollack puts it, “Being a boy becomes defined in the negative: not being a girl.”

Researchers have found that for the first few months of life, boys are actually more emotionally expressive than girls. But the “Code” is so culturally pervasive, from crib-crying to first-day kindergarten clinging to summer-camp nerves, that young boys have nowhere to hide. The threat of traumatic separation is unconsciously pushed again in adolescence, Pollack says, based on adults’ projected and misguided fears of the boy becoming “soft.”

Angry and Alone

The shame that threatens to silence the voices of adolescent girls, Pollack says, is evidenced in boys much earlier – as young as ages 5 or 6. While girls become shame-sensitive, boys become “shame-phobic.” Terrorized by shame’s humiliation and isolation, boys may seek reconnection by acting out behaviorally, which can be mislabeled as everything from ADHD to ‘problem child.’

The mood swings and angry eruptions many teen boys exhibit may be symptomatic of “earlier, unrequited longings for connection” and the shame associated with these longings, Pollack says.  Because the “Boy Code” limits a boy’s access to a fuller range of feelings, anger is accentuated as the “okay emotion” for a boy. It then becomes the vicious funnel through which he expresses his vulnerability and helplessness.

“Shame haunts many boys all their lives,” Pollack writes, “undermining their core of self-confidence, eroding their fragile self-esteem, leaving them with profound feelings of loneliness, sadness, and disconnection.”

Stretching Versus Severing Connection

A boy’s healthy self-differentiation or individuation emerges not from the shame-based separation of the “Boy Code,” but from adults reinforcing both attachment bonds and firm boundaries as a secure base for growth. It’s the difference between the pseudo-independence of the Code, and learning a mature interdependence.

Pollack calls this a “living wall of love that they can lean on and bounce off.” He continues: “It’s not separation but rather individuation that they want. It’s becoming a more mature self in the context of loving relationships – stretching the psychological umbilical cord rather than severing it – that healthy male adolescence is all about.”

Christian Counseling: Reframing the Question

Professional Christian counseling can help to revise the “Boy Code,” by reframing the do-I-have-what-it-takes question into one of connection over conquest. As we’ll see in parts 3 and 4, a boy is seeking “co-narrators,” or men whose honest storytelling can unburden the load of shame that a younger man secretly bears, replacing it with the weight of their wisdom.

The father-wounds and father-longings that all men carry can be difficult to name amid other struggles, at any age or life stage.